Four years ago, many of my friends and I worked together with a group called the “One America Committee”. It was a PAC set up by John Edwards as a tool for his presidential aspirations. An important focus was the issue of poverty, and the different treatment that haves and the have-nots in America face.

Many of my friends remained active in politics and various progressive political blogs. We’ve stayed in touch via email. We’ve grieved the death of Elizabeth Edwards and expressed deep disappointment in John Edwards.

Throughout much of this, I’ve argued that we need to step away from the dramas on the big political blogs and focus on the underlying issues. I’ve encouraged people to write local blogs, blogs focused on state politics, or blogs dealing with issues about poverty.

Recently, this has all come back to me in a couple different ways. I was invited to join a new group on Facebook, and was told that I’m already the member of too many groups. At least half a dozen of them were related to One America, and I’ve been thinking it is time to say good by to these groups.

Then, yesterday, I spend the morning at one of CHC’s dental clinics for Give Kids a Smile day. It was an important reminder of how important it is to fight for the ideals of One America, especially today. Back at home, I received an email from some of my old friends about the closing of OpenLeft, another progressive voice online. One email mentioned my frequent encourage for people to blog about poverty issues in their own backyard.

I responded and talked a little bit about my experiences on Give Kids a Smile day and suggested that perhaps we should rebuild One America. We should focus on working with community health centers, homeless shelters, food banks, voter registration drives, and other hands on ways of addressing issues of poverty, health care, homelessness and other issues. We should be involved in media reform to facilitate spreading the stories that too often get lost.

So, what do you think? Are you interested in rebuilding one America?